The last shoe drops

IT'S COMING DOWN to money," says Eddie Maurer, a 56-year-old oil painter and the head of Jem Studios, an artists' loft and gallery space on the corner of Occidental and Jackson in Pioneer Square. He's waiting for the start of a tenants' meeting he helped organize.

"I've got the final deal today," he says, leaning forward in a big easy chair in the corner of longtime resident and stained-glass artist Christine Morgan's living room. "We're going to open an escrow account, and anybody who wants to invest in the new building can put money in. . . ." Maurer throws some numbers out for the type of cash that most of these artists do not have at their disposal.

Wayne Walker, a long-haired Jem occupant who looks to be in his 50s, raises an eyebrow. "That's a daunting task," he says. Maurer mentions the "Mafia types" he spoke with earlier in the day in hopes of garnering funds. Walker asks if Maurer's joking. He's not.

Then Maurer switches gears, mentioning a regular arts patron who might be interested in helping artists who are hoping to get the lease on another cooperative space. Their eyes are on the Griffin Envelope Building, a 54,000-square-foot structure in North Duwamish, which they'd like to purchase outright—eventually. They want something permanent, something that will head off the type of nightmare they're currently having, where their beloved space—the Washington Shoe Manufacturing Building, which houses Jem Studios—gets pulled out from under them by a landlord who is kicking everybody out and courting the dot-coms.

Last September, the Samis Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that owns the Shoe, announced that Jem's latest five-year lease, the studio's fourth, would not be renewed; the building must be vacated by May 1. After that date, work will begin on the Shoe's conversion. Basement storage space will become 31 parking stalls; the second through fifth floors, currently artist studios or light industrial space, will be turned into offices; the sixth floor will undergo a curious change, as all 12,000 square feet of it will be sculpted into a penthouse suite complete with study, library, landscaped courtyard, and six bedrooms.

It's a dramatic change from the way the building's been used since 1980, when Maurer set up shop on the second floor in the abandoned offices of T&M Athletics. Ever since, Maurer has played a kind of spiritual godfather role to the city's arts community, nurturing new talents by renting them space and showing at the Jackson Street Gallery across the street, where now-accomplished artists like Mike Haskell, Karen Guzak, and Ed Cox debuted their earliest work. Today, Jem is a major attraction of the First Thursday gallery walk, where most of the painters, sculptors, craftmakers, actors, musicians, and photographers who currently occupy the Shoe show—and try to sell—their wares. They won't be there come the first Thursday in May, however.

This scenario isn't a total shock: Most of their peers have already been rocked by the effects of downtown Seattle's seismic real estate shifts. Because of its role as the city's artistic center, Pioneer Square has evolved from urban ghost town to commercial gold mine, attracting major corporations and well-funded start-up businesses to its brick-lined streets. With this come the usual rent increases and property cost hikes, which in turn have sparked the loss of many of Seattle's alternative arts spaces. In the last four years, six artists' buildings with more than 200 studios have closed in Pioneer Square.

THE TENANT'S MEETING gets under way 45 minutes late. Only 11 residents attend. Maurer lays out the proposal he's given to the owners of the Griffin Envelope Building. The short version: By the end of June, the artists will need to raise $450,000 to have the option of purchasing the Griffin Building. They need $60,000 just to secure its lease. And these proverbial starving artists have six weeks to raise it. A possible investor has offered $20,000, but there's nothing in the coffers right now. Maurer has considered selling the house in Costa Rica where he's spent most of the last five years living and painting, but he hopes it doesn't come to that.

Daniel Fried, a filmmaker and graphic designer, speaks up. He's eager to get moving. Where Maurer tempers his fervor with an underlying sense of doom, Fried's enthusiasm remains unchecked. "We need to think about $40,000," he says. "Does anybody in the room have it? Can anyone raise it?" No hands go up.

Christine Morgan chimes in. "I've sent out information to a lot of people who can help," she says. "We haven't heard anything yet, but it takes time. . . ." Her voice trails off. Morgan has been working closely with Maurer, driving around looking at spaces, but after close to seven months, the artists have still not found affordable group housing, and what was once a unified front is beginning to come apart. Many of the artists are still unsure where they'll go come May 1, including Morgan herself.

Still, she attempts to keep everyone's spirits up. This is no easy task. For one thing, there aren't as many tenants in the complex as there once were; for a building that regularly counted 70 or 80 residents, there are now only 40, and by the middle of March five of them still haven't paid their rent for the month, with several more expected to disappear before April. In a building-wide memo, Maurer and Morgan plea: "We still have to keep the lights, water, gas, insurance, and washer/dryers going until the last day. So please get the last of the rents current."